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Chur Burger, Sydney

This is the second year in a row that I’ve travelled to Sydney around the time of the Christmas/New Year holidays – I should really know better. There’s nothing worse (for a visiting blogger, anyway) than finding out that a place on your to-eat list is shut up shop while you’re in town. I’ll make it to Porteno one day…

Chur Burger was one such place. I stupidly didn’t think to check online first, and walked all the way from the Rocks to Surry Hills only to find the doors shut and the stools upturned on the tables. The sight of upturned chairs on tables always makes me sad. Probably because I have come to associate it with the both feeling of both hunger and the knowledge that I will have to wait longer than expected to satisfy that hunger.

On the upside though, Chur burger had a pop-up at the London Hotel in Paddington, so we were still able to sample some of the super-hyped burgers that I had been ogling pornographic photos of on Twitter.

I liked the use of six-pack holders for the condiments – clever and very hipster.

Bob ordered the pulled pork burger, which came with Chur BBQ sauce, red slaw and fennel mayo. The meat was tender, juicy and quite rich. Bob seemed to enjoy it but I don’t think I could have eaten the whole thing on my own.

I have long maintained that a true ‘burger’ has beef in it. Sure, you can put chicken, pork, fish, veg, whatever you like between two halves of a bun; however, it is at best a round-shaped sandwich. It is not a burger. Burgers have mince in them. End of story. That was essentially a long-winded way of saying of course, I got the beef burger.

It was simple and contained all the essential ingredients as per the Melbourne Food Snob burger specification: beef, cheese, tomato jam, mustard mayo and pickle. (By the way, I did mean mustard-infused mayo; I didn’t misplace a comma). And that mayo was copious, oozing out the sides to the extent that at first glance I thought it to be melted cheese.

The beef was nice and pink in the middle, and the tomato jam was sweet enough to add contrast without being sickly. The first 80% of the burger that I ate was quite good indeed.

One of the common complaints on their Urbanspoon page is that the burgers are dry. It was only as I was getting to the end of the burger that this was really noticeable, as by that stage all the mayo was gone (yes, all that mayo!) The meat was full of flavour, but it seemed to be lacking in juiciness – there was no juice on my plate or on my hands afterwards, which was not a good sign. The bun was also a tad on the dry side. Overall the burger was balanced out by the mayo, but it shouldn’t have needed that much of it. I would have preferred less mayo and a juicier patty.

Apparently ‘chur’ means something in Kiwi speak – based on this burger joint the meaning is likely ‘hipster’, assuming of course that there are hipsters in New Zealand.

Despite my earlier criticisms, the burgers weren’t bad at all. Like quite a few other places I’ve been to, the burger fits into my category of ‘pretty good, but could be amazing with a little bit of tweaking’. Chur Burger is definitely worth checking out – all the burgers (or should I say, burger and round-shaped sandwiches) are $10, so it won’t break the bank.

Chur Burger pop-up at the London Hotel85 Underwood StreetPaddington, NSW